Star Wars Rise of Resistance Report: Recent Rockiness & 8 am Opening Crowds
Since our last visit to Galaxy’s Edge, a few things have changed with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Namely, Hollywood Studios has moved to a later opening time. In this report, we share our latest experience with Walt Disney World’s new flagship attraction, plus recent rockiness and unreliability with the ride.
While we knew it was an inevitability at some point, it did come by surprise that Disney’s Hollywood Studios moved to an 8 am opening time only a couple of weeks before the popular Presidents’ Day holiday, at a time when Walt Disney World is surprisingly busy.
Between the upcoming holiday and the aforementioned crowds, we figured the 7 am openings would be extended at least through the opening of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. (Shows what we know!) Wanting to see how this delayed opening worked in practice, we headed to Disney’s Hollywood Studios yesterday…
We were once again at the Disney’s Hollywood Studios turnstiles 30 minutes before official park opening, making it through the parking booths and security checkpoint pretty swiftly. Unlike before, there was a noticeably larger crowd despite the turnstiles having opened shortly before we arrived.
Even with a longer line, getting through the turnstiles was still a breeze and took around 5 minutes. In large part, this was because no fingerprint validation was required, making the process far faster. After that, we stepped foot onto a very crowded Hollywood Boulevard.
It’s worth noting that you would not have to arrive this early to ensure you’re inside Disney’s Hollywood Studios by 8 am. After ~7:45 am, this is the line you could anticipate encountering, which amounts to a wait of under 3 minutes. (Above is a photo from around that time yesterday.)
Naturally, it was another overcast morning, as I cannot catch a break when it comes to beautiful sunrises in this park.
Inside the park is another story entirely. However, some of the congestion on Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards has been relieved, although you might not be able to tell from the photos.
Rather than having crowds gather in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run or Slinky Dog Dash, those rope drops were moved closer to their respective lands. This was a savvy move, and one that allowed Disney’s Hollywood Studios to offset the larger crowd of the delayed opening time with more physical space available to guests within the park.
Heading over to Grand Avenue, we see a pretty colossal crowd as of around 7:45 am.
I have no clue what the wait time for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run would’ve been from my spot in this mass of humanity, but my personal answer is “too long.”
I didn’t stick around to find out, instead bouncing over to Animation Courtyard to see how things were looking for Toy Story Land’s rope drop.
A few things here are quickly worth noting. First, this crowd is smaller. Second, there are two “rope drop worthy” rides in Toy Story Land. Third, Slinky Dog Dash will have a longer line later in the day. Finally, it takes far less time from queue to exit to do Slinky Dog Dash than Smugglers Run, meaning you’re on your way to attraction #2 far sooner.
Above is the crowd for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge just before 8 am. At this point, the mass is backed up to the entrance of Star Tours. This is, again, despite Slinky Dog Dash being the objectively superior rope drop choice at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The crowd disparity between the two is still a bit baffling.
My guess is that this primarily is caused by a mix of confusion and Star Wars excitement. People are hyped to be there early for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, don’t quite know what to do, and that spills over into this. I don’t want to be the buzzkill who rains on the starship parade by pointing out that heading to Galaxy’s Edge first is irrational from a park touring perspective…but it is.
Over in front of Carthay Circle on Sunset Boulevard is where guests are being held for Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. This is the crowd as of 7:59 am.
While this is worse than it has been previous mornings, it’s still maybe 25% the size of the crowd for Toy Story Land, and 10% the size of the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge crowd. Plus, this smaller crowd is split between two headliners. Everyone waiting in Grand Avenue is making the slow march towards Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run.
If you’re sticking around Disney’s Hollywood Studios all day (whether you want to or not, you very well might be depending upon your Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance return time), Sunset Boulevard is also an objectively better rope drop option than Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Above are wait times yesterday as of 5:30 pm.
These times will vary throughout the midday hours, but a couple of things are consistent. First, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run wait times will peak shortly after park opening. Second, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror will both hit their highs in the afternoon. In short, you’re saving more time–not to mention having a more pleasant experience by rope dropping anything but Star Wars Land.
Moving along, what was perhaps most interesting is the number of people not rope dropping anything at all. Walkways, shops, and restaurant seating areas were all packed to a much more noticeable degree than when park opening was at 7 am.
It should go without saying, but this is a strategically poor idea. (Although still a better idea than being at the back of the pack on Grand Ave.) Even if your first FastPass+ reservation is at or shortly after park opening, you could rope drop something else via standby and do your FastPass+ attraction and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance if you somehow luck out with a low boarding group.
The question that remains for me is how an 8 am opening will look on a busier days, such as Presidents’ Day. There was not a ton of unfilled space in Disney’s Hollywood Studios by 8 am on this random weekday in February, so things could get really uncomfortable on a busier day–or if Walt Disney World sticks with those 9 am park openings scheduled for next month.
One solution is simply opening Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge or Toy Story Land before official park opening time. Both could soak up crowds and there’s no reason those attractions could begin running early. The alternative is letting things get even more uncomfortable, which is less than ideal for guests. With the later opening time, there’s also another option…
You could leave entirely and walk over to Epcot for that park’s rope drop. There are a couple of strategies that could work, but we couldn’t stick around to test them yesterday. Rather than spitballing here, we’ll follow up sometime next week. The general idea is intentionally securing a later boarding group for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, doing Epcot in the morning, and a late afternoon itinerary at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
We didn’t make it all the way over to Epcot, but we both (intentionally) did wait until after 8:00 am to attempt to secure boarding passes. Sarah got hers (group 97) at 8:01 am and I got boarding group 121 at 8:13 am. Backup boarding groups were available until close to 9 am.
The last group called yesterday was 120, and I’m not even confident that many people with that group number were able to ride since the attraction seemed to go down around ~6 pm and not come back up again for the rest of the night. (We weren’t there, so I’m not totally sure of what happened.) This means that anyone who joined the virtual queue after around 8:11 am would not have been able to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance yesterday.
Finally, it’s also been a rough week for Rise of the Resistance’s reliability. (Above is a look at boarding groups courtesy of thrill-data.com.) On two consecutive days, the attraction struggled to make it out of the primary boarding groups, calling the remaining guaranteed spots all at once towards the end of the day, and ending up only reaching groups 67 and 70 those two days.
Those are the worst two days Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has had at Walt Disney World, and they came back-to-back. If those were your only two days at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (as a few readers indicated in the comments to our last ride report), I feel your pain.
Most other days haven’t been nearly as bad, with Rise of the Resistance reaching 110-120 with regularity. There have been delayed openings and breakdowns, but it’s always seemed to bounce back and get through a decent number. (“Cheering” for Rise of the Resistance to have efficient days feels like the lamest ‘sport’ ever, but here I am.)
While this is all frustrating, it’s ultimately the reason why the virtual queue is ideal for this unreliable attraction. Some readers who got shut out recently have indicated that they would’ve preferred waiting the standby line for a few hours for the guarantee they’d be able to experience Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
On those particularly rocky days, that’s probably not how things would’ve played out. Rather, guests would’ve waited in line for several hours, perhaps endured a shorter breakdown, and eventually would’ve been dumped from the queue before the attraction closed for the remainder of the day. This has happened with other new attractions when they had rough days, and the time those guests spent in the physical line was totally wasted. To be sure, the virtual queue and boarding pass system is imperfect, but remember that the grass is always greener on the other side. With an unreliable attraction like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, this is the ‘lemonade out of lemons’ approach that causes the fewest headaches for guests.
Still have unanswered questions about the attraction? Read our Ride Guide & FAQ for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which covers everything you need to know. If you’re planning on visiting the new land, you’ll also want to read our Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Guide. It’s a good primer for this huge addition. As for planning the rest of your trip, we have a thorough Walt Disney World Planning Guide.
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you been done the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance boarding pass dash since the 8 am openings began? What was your approach? If you’ve done RotR in the last two weeks, what time did you arrive, which boarding group did you receive, and when was your return time? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Did anyone else notice that boarding groups were open today (2/7) at 7:45 am??
I think a lot of the people seemingly not rope dropping anything were family/friends of people who cared to get a Boarding Group (but they themselves were just along for the ride – no pun intended!). With a 7am open, people/families who have some that don’t care to ride are more likely to split – “you go, and I’ll meet you there.” At 8am, I think it’s more likely people are more like “let’s just all go together.” It makes HS that much more crowded in general with people who don’t necessarily care about the headliners much earlier in the day.
I am curious if having an 8:05 AM dining reservation at Oga’s on an 8:00 park opening day serves any advantage to getting into the park easier/sooner? I understand that RoR boarding passes become available to everyone at the same time. Just more from a logistics aspect I guess is what I’m asking.
No it definitely doesn’t. From what I can tell and not necessarily covered in this article, security still opens very early for an 8am opening, around 2 hours before park opening and then the turnstiles have also been letting people into the park it least an hour before park open at 8am. So the park is still “opening” early to let guests in but rides are obviously not operational.
That makes sense. Thanks for the input!
I’ve heard that Disney has been artificially inflating the number of Boarding Groups handled on some days by basically cutting the ride in half if it looks like they may not get all guaranteed BGs through by park close. From what I’ve heard, they are skipping both the Rey pre-show and the ITS shuttle and taking guests through backstage areas directly to the Star Destroyer hanger. Can anyone confirm this?
I rode it three times between Jan 28 & Feb 2 and nothing was skipped. we did have two different experiences during the ride portion (don’t know if spoilers are allowed here?) with the “bad guy”. in one it was an animatronic, and the other it was on a screen.
Thank you for the update! Was the sign ups for Jedi training open before rope drop? I am hoping that when I go I can sign him up before rope drop and then head over to rope drop GE.
I don’t think so, but I’m not 100% sure.
Either way, my recommendation would be prioritizing something else and returning to the Jedi Training Academy sign-up. It doesn’t appear to be filling up *that* quickly most mornings.
I saw on another site someone said they signed up for Jedi training before the park opened and that 15-20 other groups were in line. But like Tom said, unless you really need a morning slot, RD something else, then go back.
We just finished our 4 day trip and had a great experience in all parks even though crowds seemed heavy. Started Sunday Feb 2 at HWStudio. Arrived by 6 am for 7am opening, thru security, scanned in and lined up by Toy Story by 6:30. When RoR queue opened at 7:00, we scored Boarding group 18, which I attribute to your great suggestions! We rope dropped Slinky Dog, signed up 2 kids for Jedi Training, walked thru Galaxy Edge and rode RoR before 9:00. Did everything except Rocking Rollercoaster because it broke down, just as we were about to board after Fantasmic show. Did Millenium Falcon at 8 pm with 20 minute wait and closed out the day for another ride on Slinky Dog with 15 minute wait. Fabulous day at HWS thanks to your helpful suggestions!
When you “queued” for Toy story Land with the mass crowd at 6:30, how long of a wait did you have in the Slinky Dog line!?
when I RD slinky dog, it was about a 20mins wait, but we were moving/walking the whole time. It also was a slightly delayed start (less than 10mins), and the cast members were asking ppl to leave line and go somewhere else, but we held fast and the ride was up and running pretty quickly
we were at WDW Jan 26 to Feb 3. our HS days were: Jan 28, Jan 31 & Feb 2. We stayed at Pop Century. All days up at 5am, and out of the room around 5:30/5:40, to catch a bus to HS. Even though they say buses come 1 hr before park open, we were on buses each day before 6am and at the park just after 6am.
into HS before 6:30am each day. – keep to the far right (up against the green construction wall) after getting through security.
After reading numerous strategies on how to secure a BG, I opted for the basic switching between the main RotR screen and the My Status screen. I started doing that juuuust before 7am started, and it was literally moments before I secured a BG (though it feels like FOREVER when going through the process). I was on my data (not wifi) each time.
Jan 28, sitting over by ToT/RnRC, got BG: 14 – we got a 1 hr call back window
Jan 31, sitting over by Toy Story Land, got BG: 10 – we got a 2 hr call back window
Feb 2, sitting over by Galaxy’s Edge, got BG 3 (!!!) – we got a 1 hr call back window
Jan 31 was the only time we experienced tech issues with the ride. We got all the way up to the part juuuust before we actually sit on the ride vehicle, and were evacuated out. We received a FP to come back once the ride was operational, and they walked us back through what I’m assuming was the FP queue. we literally had ZERO wait before starting the entire experience all over again.
we were super lucky to get low boarding groups each time, as the chance of a tech issue seems to go up the longer the ride is functioning throughout the day.
Let me know if you have any questions! 🙂
Thank you for your explanation. I haven’t been to the park in a few years so this online boarding pass is through MyDisney Experience ? Toggling between two screens means you were just updating the screens? Thanks!
yes, it’s in MDE. you can see it there now if you bring up the app.
and yes, basically just refreshing the screens. but moving between the two screens had better results for me. I saw a couple next to me, just pressing the “join boarding group” button on the main RotR screen (which was greyed out). I guess they figured it would just re-fresh if you keep pressing the button (?), but it wasn’t for them. I told them to click on the “my status” button, and the “join boarding group” was now available to be clicked.
Just a few questions Andy. We are both 80 yrs young and have raised our son from the beginning of Star Wars and we are not tech savvy. Am I better off NOT using WiFi, just my cellular plan? My husband rarely uses his phone so I assume I can attempt to get BG for the 2 of us together? Did I read correctly that you toggled between screens on your phone? Should we both try at the same time? So many things have changed at WDW since we brought our children and we only have one shot at this. Thanks to anyone who can help!
Hi Anna! I chose to use data b/c I had heard concerns about the swiftness of the Wifi considering how many ppl are using it at the exact same time – and I didn’t want to take any chances!
yes, i just toggled between the two screen in MDE. you can log into MDE now and go to the RotR screen: Press the “Find out more” button, and then you’re on the main RotR screen. from here i would click “my status”, and if the “join Boarding group” button wasn’t available to press, then I went back to the main RotR screen, and checked to see if the “Join boarding group” was available to press there. if not, i clicked on “my status” again,… wash & repeat 🙂 until the Join Boarding Group button is available to be clicked. Then you select who is in your boarding group. and you will select you & your husband – i’m assuming he’s already listed as a member of your party, if you’ve booked FPs before.
You can both try to get boarding groups at the same time, and whoever gets the BG first, the other person will automatically be locked out (your MDE will say something like “oops! you already are in a boarding group” and won’t let you sign up for another one).
hope that helps 🙂
I can’t remember if you highlighted in all your posts (which have been excellent btw), but another issue I see with them switching RoTR to standby only is they would probably have to shut the queue down shortly after the park opened.
I think people want standby because they think that means they will get to experience the attraction. Disney’s policy of letting you in the queue up to the minute before closing certainly wouldn’t work here because the ride barely works as is; they would have to run it 24/7 to get late entries through the queue.
There is no scenario where you could go the queue late in the day and just endure the long wait, because they’d either dump the queue or not let you in the first place.
I hope this is better by next winter…
Yeah. People are making a lot of charitable assumptions about how a standby line would work at Rise of the Resistance, but none of those even remotely reflect the reality of the attraction’s operational woes.
What I’m most curious about is exactly how many people is this ride spec’d to handle in a on-peak park hours day?
Disney knows…
plus – this is a great math equation for teachers!
#of riders per ride x length of ride time from dispatch = X many riders per day.
I mean, I get wanting to get on this ride, but to me, this nonsense is just not worth the price of admission IMO.
I love WDW, but between this, all the ride closures/Epcot refurbishements and the costs of on property…
I truly believe I’d have more luck, and save $$$ by flying to Disneyland and spending my dollars there.
There are actually two terms for what you’re describing: theoretical hourly ride capacity (THRC), which is how many guests could be cycled through assuming 100% efficiency. THRC is like a porg: not something that exists in the wild, even though it should. Nothing operates at 100% efficiency, as guests can unload slowly, pauses have to be made for accessibility reasons, etc.
Because of this, there’s also operational hourly ride capacity (OHRC), which is the “real world” number a ride can expect to achieve thanks to humans being human, and all of that.
For Rise of the Resistance, there should be a third term, because it’s OHRC is not even half of what it should be right now. (Once operating as intended, its OHRC is actually pretty healthy.)
We were there Wednesday morning. I didn’t realize that the Skyliner didn’t open until 9:00 so we had to run for a bus. We made it through security quickly and had the app ready for the opening announcement. My phone updated slowly though and my boarding group was 110. The groups ran out in under a minute! We didn’t get to ride. So sad!
This is really bad news for my family who has two people with disabilities(one being a disabled Vietnam vet). Getting there that early will be hard. While they told us the rules for us are different than normal people, it’s still the same story, when the queue is full our disability pass means nothing, and considering the fact that the queue seems to book for the whole day within 10 mins of opening we are screwed. Hopefully, this calms down by the time we go on our vacation. WDW needs to set aside a reasonable amount of slots for people with disabilities who cannot arrive 1-2 hours before park opening to get slots
Try emailing Disney Guest Services. I read on another blog there was a group that had a similar situation. They were able to add additional members to their group after they arrived since they had a case number and were approved in advance. Of course YYMV and at least one member of the group had to be there but its worth a shot!
I’ve read about many occasions where Disney has made accommodations for folks so if you do end up planning a trip I think it’s worth asking them about other options. I have not seen anything specific to RoR so maybe it wouldn’t be wise to plan a trip specifically to ride that but I don’t think you have give up the idea of riding entirely. Hope it works out for you!
Unfortunately Disney has to keep “perks” for those with disabilities to a minimum due to all the abuse that has happened through the years (ie guests hiring disabled people to get them to the head of lines, fake drs notes, etc). I could easily see that abuse screwing tons of people (truly disabled guests as well as regular guests who play by the rules) if they didn’t do things this way for ROTR. Which is a shame for families with true disabilities. I don’t know what the answer is other than what they are doing. They can’t insist on medical records to prove someone’s disabilities and they can’t force you to prove you know the disabled person in your group. Sadly many people will abuse a rule for their own benefit no matter how it affects others. It’s like the people who stick an “emotional support” vest on their pet just so they can bring them in. As a rule follower, I wish there was a way to keep people from getting away with those things, but sadly we’ll just have to hope karma takes care of it. As someone else suggested, email or call Disney and see what they can do for you and good luck!
Personally, the whole disabled issue was a case of CYA for Disney. We had been to WDW and Disneyland numerous times and never experienced a time when the disabled line was so long that it affected everyone else. So what if people were abusing it. When it becomes a logistical problem then change it. The problem is that there are people who believe in equity. The solution to a few people abusing the system is punishing everyone seems kinda foolish IMO. In reality, they basically took away the disabled accommodation. Now they are just making the disabled wait like everyone else just not in line. I will attempt to call and see what they tell me.
I called WDW disabled services and there is nothing that they will do for disabled guests. Unless they get there prior to rope drop with their WHOLE group including the disabled guests and get on the queue we are screwed. I voiced my displeasure with Disney’s policy and that they are basically treating disabled people the same as everyone else. I mean what can they say? It’s not the system I’m pissed off about it’s the fact that in order to work within the system we as a group have to do things that aren’t realistic for people with disabilities in order to enjoy a ride at one of their parks. IF we can get a boarding group they won’t make us wait in line, we can board in front of every other group…..gee thanks 😉
Resepectfully, Wolverine, it DID become a problem. that’s why they had to change it. I worked at Disneyland just before the change and the number of people clearly abusing the system was truly sad. Thankfully in your case, you live in CA for I hope your group gets to experience ROTR:)
We were at HS 2/2 at 6 am for a 7 am park open. Through the gate & in front of the Chinese theater by 6:45. We had a party of 8 using 4 different apps & signing up exactly at 7am we ranged from groups 34-74 for boarding.
The ride broke in the 2nd part but we were issued a FP & told you watch for the top number of the boarding groups to advance & then return. The status never changed from “open” but within the hour we were back on (sent through the much shorter fast pass cue). Was totally worth the brief wait we endured….now I can say I rode it 1& 1/2 times Considering ourselves very lucky seeing the groups never exceeded 60 the last few days!!
Boarding groups were gone by 8:01 on Tuesday. Was packed, 8am opening was a big disappointment to me. Would have gone on Monday had I noticed they were switching to 8 on Tuesday. Managed group 32 still but the morning was really crowded.
Planning a last minute trip and going to HS on March 6th. I don’t think we will have much luck with Fastpasses at this point, and my 3 adult kids have been to WDW MANY times, so they are not so worried about Fastpasses and (shocker) they have no interest in Star Wars!
We have never been to the new Toy Story Land and of course Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway should be open. What should our strategy be? Will be driving (not staying on property, but are staying close by). thanks!
Check for last minute fast passes the night before or early AM since people tend to realize then they won’t make their early morning fast passes.
With the new fast pass tiers you can still get TSM and Aliens on that date for TSL. I would rope drop Slinky or MMRR if you aren’t able to secure a FP and go from there.
Check out Star Wars later in the day once the crowd is lower since the land is cool to walk through.
Just my recommendations though.
The virtual queue is better than FP at dealing with the breakdowns. Let’s say at 9 am the ride goes down for 2 hours. With the virtual queue, groups stop being called which accomplishes two things. First, people at least know they need to find something else to do until they get called. With a FP you don’t generally spend your time watching to see if the ride goes down, you just show up during the FP window. And even if you did know the ride was down, you’d still show up because at 9am you don’t know how long the ride will be down. Second, if it was FP, when the ride went back up at 11 am there would be 2 hours of people with FPs (from 9-11 am) waiting around added to the 11 am FPs, and this crunch would take hours to work itself off if it ever did.
I experienced exactly this on 2/2 with 7D Mine Train at MK. The ride was down for about an hour in the late afternoon and the standby queue was emptied. Seeing empty cars running on the track meant they were testing and likely getting close, so my wife and I queued up about 50 people from the entrance, hoping to get on quickly when it opened. Sure enough, a few mins later they opened the queue. But as you said, there was now 2 hours worth of FP backup and it still took nearly an hour to board because there were so many FP people to get through. The virtual queue may not be perfect but it is by far the best option for RotR!
Tom, has it gotten to the point with all the new attractions that Hollywood Studios cannot handle the size of the crowds that seem to be populating that park daily? Most of your recent posts all seem to touch on the fact that January and now February “slower” crowd weeks have been nothing like anything experienced in past years, so I guess you have to throw all of that out the window and expect Holiday like crowds even in the formally labelled slower weeks of January and February due to the new attractions driving the traffic at Hollywood Studios. We always selected the last week of February for many years mainly because of the great weather and the medium sized crowds overall.
Rob, I think you are right! With the addition of various new DVC and other hotels, the crowd levels are becoming larger than the parks can handle. I was there in mid-January and there were still 2 and 3 hour waits. I can’t imagine what “peak” times are like. Honestly, it is becoming a safety concern. I witnessed many people behaving poorly because they were overwhelmed by the crowding and lack of available resources, both physically and personnel-wise.
I was at studios in 15 Jan with my 3 adult children, arrived early and got an early boarding group for RotR – no issues.
My question is I’ll be headed to the studios at the end of March with my 12 year old nephew who wants to do Jedi training. When does that open for sign-ups? Will we be able to split up and have one adult and him go to Jedi training and others wait in que Toy story land? Then we join back up in the que?
We were able to sign up for Jedi training last week at 10am, no problem. Still lots of groups left. I was surprised, because I had completely forgotten about it and was sure my kids would miss out. Sign up opens at park opening- it’s back near the Indiana Jones show.
You only need one adult to stay with the child participating in Jedi training. But I don’t know if you can join the queue after
Can you explain how to access the virtual queue for rise of the resistance. What steps do you have to go through and where in the MDE app does this take place?
This should answer all of your questions: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/star-wars-rise-resistance-faq-ride-guide/
Rise of the Resistance should be closed until they are able to work out the kinks.
It’s clear that they rushed the opening due to poor ticket sales and negative press about Galaxy’s Edge being a disappointment. A cast member told me that Disney normally opens up attractions to them before the public. This was not done for Rise of the Resistance because they were too busy just trying to get the ride ready for opening day.
I was in WDW last week. The first time I tried to ride Rise of the Resistance, the ride broke down for close to TWO HOURS. I was given a fast pass and was able to experience the attraction later that day. Two days later, I was back in Hollywood Studios and attempted to do the ride again. Unfortunately, the ride broke down. I tried again later that day only to have the same result. After that, the ride was shut down for the day.
I saw many people visibly upset because they were forced to end their Disney vacation without getting to experience the ride.
“Rise of the Resistance should be closed until they are able to work out the kinks.”
I don’t necessarily disagree with this, but I don’t necessarily agree either. I simply don’t have enough info to present an informed opinion. (I do have enough info to say that opening this in December–a month that had high hotel occupancy regardless–was not motivated by poor numbers.)
I will say that this is the most technologically complex attraction that Imagineering has ever created, and the delay for which you’re advocating could’ve been YEARS. (Literally. It happened with Test Track.)
A lot of people have been disappointed and been shut out due to the breakdowns/unreliability–that’s undeniably true. Many have also been blown away by what they were able to experience.
For me, this is similar to closing attractions when effects aren’t working. Where is the line drawn? At what point does show take priority over the possibility of someone on a once-in-a-lifetime trip being denied a (flawed) experience? I don’t have an answer to any of these questions–I’m just pointing out that this is a delicate balancing act.
Agree that it is a delicate balancing act and that the ride is one of the biggest undertakings Disney has ever taken on.
Still, have you ever seen a ride break down as often as Rise of the Resistance does? I have not.
I realize that no ride is perfect, but I think the past two months has demonstrated that this ride is clearly not ready for public consumption.
I agree they need to fix the break downs but this is a very complex ride, and will probably take a while to do so. That being said we got to ride it on jan. 30 . as soon as announcement started at 7.00 am we were pushing buttons on phone for BG . We wound up with group 37, this ride is awesome!!!!!! by far the best ride in Disney,
In your reply to Tom, you asked, “Still, have you ever seen a ride break down as often as Rise of the Resistance does?”
Yes, but not at WDW. Just up the road at Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure makes Disney’s Rise of the Resistance look like the pinnacle of reliability engineering. And they don’t have a boarding pass system, meaning absurdly long waits, queues dumped on a regular basis, and many vacation expectations subverted. Only in Universal’s wildest dreams could the Hagrid ride be operating as often as Rise of the Resistance.
(Not giving Disney a pass on this – just saying it could be worse.)
My issue is a bit different. Disney should not create a ride so long that it will not accommodate everyone or at least most everyone who wants to ride it at least once. From what I am reading it won’t even accommodate half the baseline crowd that shows up to the park. Only a select few get on. Piss poor planning and design IMO. I understand what they were shooting for here but to make a ride so hard to accommodate is really bad especially considering a lot of people plan a vacation and want to experience certain things at Disney. Luckily we live in California so if we miss out on this ride we can probably get it at home. Most people don’t have that luxury.
Maybe a dumb question, but is there a specific reason why they can’t give people virtual queue passes as they get to the park. When you check through, you are assigned then and there.
It would fix the over-crowding and the insanity that happens each morning.
Disney could then get people to other areas of the park, or in their mind, make more money by getting people eating and shopping faster
Not a dumb question at all.
This is actually (more or less) what was done prior to the current system, with boarding passes being distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
The problem with this approach (from WDW’s perspective) is that it encourages people to show up as early as possible for the lowest numbered boarding groups–which is a problem that snowballs. Moreover, if too many people are lined up outside the gate/security perimeter, DHS has to open the turnstiles/security for safety reasons–which also causes that same problem to snowball.
In short, the quasi-lottery approach discourages guests from showing up at the crack of dawn as there’s no advantage (for RotR, at least) to being at the park before official opening time.
What time does the virtual que open if the park opens at 8am? It says that the passes were gone by 8:01am.
Hi Nicole. the virtual queue opens at 8am, and yes, the groups were all gone 1 minute later. it feels like it’s soooo fast, but it is literally seconds for you to click a couple of buttons on the app and get a group.
people were starting to show up as early as 3am when they were first doing this. everyone has that “i have to be first in line” mentality, so every day people were showing up earlier. and earlier. and earlier. it was getting ridiculous. and that’s just my opinion from following online. i can’t imagine the chaos in person during that timeframe.